Thursday, April 3, 2008

It's good to know I'm far from alone in my unadulterated hatred of the Epic Movie ilk. The Hater over at The A.V. Club has this idea for those dudes' next film (which looks to parody Superbad):
Fake McLovin and his date (maybe Fake Jessica Simpson) would be looking for a room in the house to have sex in, and the entirety of the movie (all 70 terrible minutes of it) would be the pair opening door after door to reveal pop culture reference coupling, after pop culture reference coupling. And, of course, for the big finale, Fake McLovin and Fake Jessica Simpson would open the attic door to reveal Fake Juno giving birth on the back of Fake Christian Siriano (while he shouts, "So not fierce!") to Fake Flava Flav, who would then be promptly adopted by Fake Angelina Jolie. The End.
So, it's like a highly abstract version of their earlier oeuvre? It's sorta like my idea for fast food psychotherapy: the shrink just gives you a list of things to say with the assumption that just being able to say some specific phrase will suddenly make a person "fixed." The laziness that one finds in such things is enormous: more than anything else, these movies resemble conversations between longtime friends that are filled with inside jokes, only the jokes are "outside" jokes, and they're not even jokes. I suppose I'm a snob for mocking what the Great And Good American PeopleTM enjoy watching (as though there were any doubt of my snobbishness anyway) but this is what I think of when those right-wing politicians talk about how hordes of Mexican immigrants are destroying our culture, or whatever they say. I think of Epic Movie. And I shudder. This is the mainstream culture, folks. Now, theres still great stuff going on around the margins, but that's all they are: margins. I don't mind being marginal. How about you?